Irish psychiatrists have proved a direct link between bullying and later mental health problems, research has revealed.

Royal College of Surgeons Psychiatry Professor Mary Cannon told the Irish Mirror: “Our findings are the first to show there is direct evidence between exposure to childhood trauma and psychotic experience.

“Furthermore, it showed that the end of traumatic experiences was associated with a significant reduction in the incidence of psychotic experiences.

“What we’re showing in this research is that bullying is happening mainly in school and 10% of physical assault is happening at school.

“The highest proportion for assault was by someone the child knew in school, so it shows if schools intervened early it would eliminate a lot of the traumas.”

The study found episodes of psychosis such as hearing voices were an issue of concern.

A total of 1,112 school-based teens aged from 13 to 16 years old were assessed at the start of the study, after a three-month period and again after 12 months.

During this time, they were surveyed about physical assault, bullying and psychotic experiences.

Prof Cannon added: “The children were given a six-item questionnaire about bullying and the more of those questions the young person said ‘yes’ to, the more likely they were to later report hearing voices or having some kind of psychotic experience.

“It showed that the stronger the level of bullying, the higher the risks of these kind of problems.

“Questions about teasing, others taking things from you and have people been calling you names were among the six.

“We know that bullying is associated with higher rates of depression, anxiety and self-harm but recent evidence has shown that bullying is linked to other symptoms like hearing voices.

“One in five children will experience hearing voices at some point and there are a minority of children who go on to have serious problems in adulthood and we need to look out for this.

“If you do something about these traumas then you can also help the child in terms of their psychological well-being.”

Lead researcher Dr Ian Kelleher added: “The research found that classmates were the largest group inflicting physical harm.

“Additionally, as most bullying takes place within the school, teacher training could have a very important role to play in reducing this harm.”

The findings were presented at the European Society for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Congress in Dublin.